Looking at him, no one would say that we are dealing with a world environmental leader. Listening to him, no one would say that he is 12 years old. He is Francisco Vera Manzanares, a Colombian boy who has become a benchmark in the fight against climate change and sustainability in his country, from where he has jumped around the world to “save the planet”, following in the footsteps of the also young Greta Thunberg, with whom he coincided at the recent World Summit against Climate Change held in Glasgow. His environmental message in Colombia has even brought him death threats, although he prefers not to talk about it. These days he has been in the Canary Islands visiting Tenerife, Lanzarote and La Gomera, invited by the Arona SOS Atlántico Festival, of which he is already its world ambassador.
-You are only 12 years old and you are already considered a world leader in the environment. Do you believe it?
“I think so. Many people do not believe it because they see you as a child, as if we children have no opinion or something to say about the environment. I am a citizen who wants to put his influence in favor of life, of the planet ”.
-But wouldn’t it be the most normal thing for you to be playing like any child at your age?
“I already do, of course I do. But let’s say there is no book, a manual on how to be a child. I believe that being normal is being happy, and happiness is represented in what you are passionate about. I am passionate about talking about the environment, taking care of it. It may sound a bit tedious, boring for a child, but if it is what you really like, it becomes exciting. I also have a Play 3 and my cell phones to interact on social networks, I also enjoy it, but there is time for everything ”.
-Your mother says, who always travels with you, that from the age of five you got on the lecterns and picked up a microphone. How did you start to become an environmental leader?
“More than all it started with the animalistic theme. Due to two factors, one, which is fundamental, is the way in which the family motivated me, because my mother and my aunt are animalists and feminists; and another the environment, because the biodiversity of Colombia inspires you, you fall in love with it. They recently released a movie called Encanto and, yes, Colombia is a charm, nature is a charm. I started with the defense of animals, but then I went to environmentalism, mainly because of the fires in the Amazon and others ”.
-From there that reforestation campaign promoted by Guardianes por la Vida, the collective you created.
“We have planted more than 700 trees since October 2020 in the north of Santander, Colombia, between a national planting and another promoted by our association Guardians for Life, apart from a campaign to collect plastics, with friends, in a A very precarious, very local environment that began to spread like a great seed throughout Colombia and today it is made up of 400 children ”.
-You study sixth grade and you are, not to be, the delegate of your class in Bogotá, after leaving your native Villeta, where you grew up among ducks and chickens, in the middle of nature. What would you like to be when you grow up?
“When I grow up I would like to be a geographer and historian. I love the history of Colombia, Latin America and the whole world. I would also like to be an astrophysicist, because I love studying the entire environment of our planet. Since he was little, before he could pronounce the c well, he said he wanted to be a scientist ”.
-Do you consider yourself the Greta Thunberg of Latin America?
“No. I consider myself Francisco Vera, it is not to offend, but I do not like that they compare, although they do it a lot. Greta is Greta and she has other conditions that are very different from me, among other reasons because Sweden has nothing to do with Colombia, in many aspects of biodiversity. Colombia is the second most biodiverse country in the world, and Sweden I don’t know where it will be, it has biodiversity, but not the charm that Colombia has ”.
-We are talking about the charm of Colombia, a country that combines great artistic talents with its natural beauty that it has given to the world; however, your country continues to be related to drug trafficking. Does that stereotype worry you?
“Yes of course, I am very concerned about that. If they call you Turkmenistan, a little known country, you associate it with a dictatorship, if they talk about Serbia, you say yes, that of the Yugoslav wars; if they talk to you about Colombia, Pablo Escobar comes out; if they name you Somalia, pirates. Each country has its culture and its charms, that is why it is good not to stay only with the dark side, but how much and good those countries have in their territory and in their people ”.
-And what is the president of Colombia doing against climate change?
“Well, you must do what you have promised at COP26 in Glasgow, which is not much, but it is something, the important thing is that you fulfill what you promised, like all governments, and that you ratify the Escazú Agreement, a treaty that for the first time forces to protect the embattled environmental leaders ”.
-Almost all children your age tend to have athletes, artists or youtubers as idols. Who do you idolize?
“I have noticed two people, super contrasted, but I laugh because they are very different. One of them is Pope Francis I, because he is a very great symbol in the Church, but in addition to his power, it is above all because of the work he does to alleviate poverty, hunger and fight, in addition, against the climate change. And another, I think he is from Barcelona, the streamer Auronplay, who is super famous, but also super rude. I like him, he makes me laugh, because he does everything, streaming, videos and his phone jokes are the ones I like the most ”.
-We are in the Canary Islands, a territory that lives by and for tourism. How do we combine mass tourism with sustainability?
“Right now I was wondering that a place that depends so much economically on tourism, how do we make the territory sustainable, that it be assimilated so that the necessary conditions are given for it to be ecotourism. Tourism could not be stopped and defended the territory, because it would leave many people without work, but there is something that could also happen, ecotwork, as happened in Pakistan, where I read a very nice piece of news in which many people who worked on internships Pollutants, during the time of the pandemic, lost their jobs. They hired 50,000 people to plant trees, millions of trees, and called them jungle workers. Here in the Canary Islands, ecological work should be favored, which does not pollute, thus tourism can also be saved ”.
-Do you already have the title of ambassador of Arona SOS Atlántico in the world on your business card?
“I am very proud and very happy about this new appointment. I am very pleased to represent this festival around the world and I am going to give my best performance in being able to make it visible throughout the globe ”.
-What is the most surprising thing about the Canary Islands?
“I did not know much about the Canary Islands, but before arriving I had been reading about four books, one very small in which I was surprised by the variety of all the islands, and, above all, their biodiversity, when I understood that here only the fauna and flora stood out. marina, with its whales, turtles, dolphins, crabs. But I have been surprised by the five different climates that exist and the magnitude of the Teide, so high and so close to the sea, as it happens in my country with Sierra Nevada in Santa Marta. A very rare, very unique relief, it could be said that the Canary Islands is Colombia in a tiny way, due to its great diversity. I congratulate you on this land so beautiful, warm and fresh at the same time. Take care of it ”.
-Who do you travel the world with?
“Now I do it with my parents, but literally I do it with almost the whole family. My grandmother always follows me, not now on trips, but when Guardians for Life was born, she was always the one who accompanied us, the one who ran behind us through Colombia, because children can have critical thinking, but we cannot be autonomous In a world as insecure as this, we cannot go out alone. I have managed to behave well and that they support me, I don’t know what my mother thinks, but that ”.
